Cleanse, consecrate, atone

Last updated on: September 6, 2017 at 10:49 pm By Peter Leithart

Jay Sklar of Covenant Seminary carefully examined the uses of various terms for cleansing, consecrating, and atonement, particularly aiming to distinguish “atone” (Heb kpr) from the others. He took aim particularly at Milgrom’s claim that kipper “means purge and nothing else,” and is synonymous with other terms for purging. Against Milgrom, Sklar examined passages that use these various verbs to determine their similarities and differences. Gramatically, Sklar noted that in both purification and consecration passages, kpr is never used in... Read more

Eternity in the heart

Last updated on: September 6, 2017 at 11:36 pm By Peter Leithart

Brian Gault gave a carefully-argued paper on the meaning of “ha-olam” in Ecclesiastes 3:11 – normally translated as “eternity.” Gault ran through a number of possible interpretations of the verse, finally suggesting a repointing leads to a translation as “darkness” or “ignorance.” The point is that God makes the world obscure to man, a theme that runs throughout Ecclesiastes. This is the reason why man can never entirely know what God is up to. Instead of seeking comprehensive knowledge, which... Read more

Vestigia trinitatis

Last updated on: September 6, 2017 at 11:50 pm By Peter Leithart

Keith Johnson gave a solid exposition of Augustine’s views on the vestigia trinitatis in an ETS session this morning. He argued that Augustine is not using the vestigia to prove the Trinity or as a “second root” (Barth) in addition to the economic revelation of the Trinity. In fact, Augustine stays within the economy of redemption throughout the discussion of the vestigia, tracing the damage of the image of God, its restoration and future perfection through Books 12-14 of de... Read more

True Toleration

Last updated on: September 6, 2017 at 11:50 pm By Peter Leithart

J. Budziszewski gave a sharply argued and spryly humorous deconstruction of liberalism’s neutralist view of tolerance, arguing that liberal states are confessional states that pretend not to be and that liberalism leads to a disguised dictatorship (a plenary ETS session). He suggested that a confessional state that follows what he called the “classic” or “patristic” notion of toleration, one which makes its own standards and ideals explicit without compelling assent, would be preferable to the duplicitous condition of contemporary political... Read more

Purity

Last updated on: September 7, 2017 at 12:03 am By Peter Leithart

No doubt it goes without saying after the previous few posts, but Latour’s anthropological assessment of modernity provides a lot of ammo for a study of modernity that would treat it as the creation of a purity culture, as dirt-avoidance. Read more

Heidegger in his woods

Last updated on: September 6, 2017 at 11:43 pm By Peter Leithart

Latour is tired of being accused of having forgotten Being, and offers this clever brush-off of Heidegger: “If, scorning empiricism, you opt out of the exact sciences, then the human sciences,, then traditional philosophy, then the sciences of language, and you hunker down in your forest – then you will indeed feel a tragic loss. But what is missing is you yourself, not the world!” Read more

Semi-modernism

Last updated on: September 7, 2017 at 12:02 am By Peter Leithart

Postmoderns, Latour suggests, think they are still modern, but in fact they have greatly oversimplified the modern Constitution. Postmoderns might emphasize the separation of subject and world, and stretch that opposition to a breaking point (Latour vividly describes them as doing the splits to keep subject and world apart); but in doing that, they forget the hidden “lower” axis of modernity, where hybridization proliferates. Or, postmoderns “relish only in the hybrid character of free floating networks and collages – thus... Read more

Modern temporality

Last updated on: September 7, 2017 at 12:10 am By Peter Leithart

In his very good section on modern temporality, Latour argues that modernity assumes that everything in the present, modern moment, is purely modern, novel. Anything that appears that is not up-to-date is a “archaism,” and moderns worry constantly that this or that event or trend might “turn back the clock.” But modern temporality is simply impossible; again, we have never been modern. Every moment is a mix of temporalities, and it is certainly the case now: “We have all reached... Read more

Representation

Last updated on: September 7, 2017 at 12:03 am By Peter Leithart

One of the key moves made since the 17th century, Latour argues, is a distinction between modes of “representation.” In the laboratory Boyle is representing things before selected witnesses through scientific experiments, giving mute nature a voice through the scientist, while in politics Hobbes suggests that the Sovereign speaks for the citizens who have ceded authority to him. This separation of scientific representation and political is essential to the modern Constitution; it means that everyone “sees double,” equivocating on the... Read more

We Have Never Been Modern

Last updated on: September 6, 2017 at 11:50 pm By Peter Leithart

Bruno Latour’s We Have Never Been Modern (Harvard 1993) is a rich study. He describes modernity in terms of a dual process of “purification” and “hybridization.” Purification involves the clean construction of a nature (and science) separated off from society and the self, while hybridization involves mixtures of nature and culture. Latour sometimes describes the separation as one between things and subjects, or between the human and non-human worlds. The result is that the realms of the real, the discursive,... Read more